August 10, 2018 — If Dr.
Seuss wrote the biography of St. Ignatius of Loyola, it would look like “Audacious
Ignatius,” a new children’s book created by two longtime Jesuit educators.
The book points toward the depth of Ignatian spirituality with playful rhymes
and colorful illustrations.

The creators of “Audacious
Ignatius” are a brother-sister team: author Paul Mitchell, who taught at Chicago
Jesuit Academy, and illustrator Katie Mitchell Broussard, who taught at Cristo
Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago.

It can be pre-ordered here and will ship in early December, just in time
for Christmas.

“We believe that books for
young people do not have to compromise on depth in order to be understandable,”
said Paul Mitchell. “We created the kind of book that we want for our own
children: deep, clever, clear, and shot through with the joy of the Gospel. I
first wrote the book as an engaging way to onboard faculty unfamiliar with
Ignatius at my old school, and then distilled the story until it was
comprehensible to young people. The effect of this was that the book points
everywhere to the depth and grace of the Spiritual Exercises.”

“This is a book for
children, and also a book that really helps me,” said Katie Mitchell Broussard.
“If you have kids, you’ve likely had the experience of reading a book so many
times that the words get stuck in your head. I love it when that happens with
this book because the words are so joyful and so prayerful.”

The book is intended for ages
5 and up, and Paul Mitchell hopes it will inspire young people to encounter God
in the Spiritual Exercises later in life.

The brother-sister team is
already planning their next book in which Ignatius narrates the Examen
prayer.

To pre-order, “Audacious Ignatius” click here. It will be delivered in
December, in time for Christmas.

August 21, 2018 – As we reckon with the Grand Jury report on sexual abuse by priests in Pennsylvania and the failures of bishops to protect the children entrusted to their care, our hearts and prayers—first and foremost—are with the victim-survivors.

January 17, 2019 — Let us pray in thanksgiving for the life of Fr. Eugene F. Merz, SJ, who was called to eternal life on January 16, 2019, around 5:30 a.m. Gene died at Zilber Hospice in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He was eighty-seven years old, a Jesuit for seventy years, and a priest for fifty-seven years.

January 16, 2019 — It was a homecoming fifty years in the making. In 2016, Fr. Casey Bukala, SJ, moved to the Colombiere Center near Detroit, where elder Jesuits live in community, receive the healthcare they need, and pray for the Church and the Society. It was not Fr. Bukala’s first time at Colombiere, however.

January 9, 2019 — Let us pray in thanksgiving for the life of Fr. John “Jack” R. Crocker, SJ, who died on Tuesday, January 8, 2019, at Colombiere Center in Clarkston, Michigan. He was 88 years old. May he rest in peace.